5 second rule

Jars

It turns out that buying a cookie jar is an excellent idea, unless, of course, you have things to accomplish throughout the course of the day that do not involve cookies.  If, for example, you have work to do, you should not purchase a cookie jar.  If you have to drive to a place, like a school, or an activity, like a piano lesson, or a doctor's appointment, or a volunteer commitment, you should also not buy a cookie jar.  If you would like to parent a child, pay a bill, read some mail, recycle a newspaper, sponge a table, cane a chair, fold a pajama, or floss a tooth, you should. not. buy. a. cookie. jar.

Because I'm going to paint a picture of your life if you do buy one, and it's not pretty.  You ready?  Pay attention, cause this will go quickly:

1. You will look at that jar with an equal mix of lust and loathing pretty much 24/7.  Lust, when it is full.  Loathing, when it is empty.  But also, loathing when it is full, because it will soon be empty.

2.  You will think about cookies during non-cookie times, like, for example, the break of dawn, or when making a cassoulet.

3. You will notice little cloudy spots on your cookie jar because your rinse agent isn't really doing its job, or because dishwashing detergents now contain fewer phosphates.  (I'm serious.)  The best way to remove cloudy spots is to massage them with a lint-free cloth, or a little vinegar and water, and to do this, you must first eat all the cookies in the jar.

4. You will consider filling the jar with more healthful items, like apples, or clementines, or lentils.  Then you'll realize this is stupid, because it's not called a clementine jar for a reason.

5. You will be forced to make cookies whose size is constrained by the diameter of the jar's inflexible opening.  So you can't make triangular cookies, dodecagonal cookies, or cookies shaped like unnaturally large snowflakes.  That also begs the question: if no two snowflakes are the same, why does a snowflake COOKIE CUTTER EVEN EXIST?

So there you go.

If you choose to completely discount my well-reasoned arguments and purchase a cookie jar anyway, may the force be with you.  Just please buy one with a very tight seal, and avoid those shaped like Garfield.  Mine is glass, and it cost me about $10. 

Here are some ideas from the archives for jar-friendly cookies:

Meyer Lemon Pistachio Cookies with fleur de sel

Chocolate oatmeal date cookies

Heather's coconut and dark chocolate bull's-eyes

Coconut palmiers

Now go eat a clementine.

(p.s. If you like things in jars, you'll love this.)

Idaho

It's so easy.  So easy to spend all our time inside, online.  Commuting from home to gym to cubicle.  Driving kids from school to soccer to birthdays.  So easy to forget the world outside and to huddle up into ourselves, eyes glued to our phones, DVRs set to record show after show after show.  So easy to forget, to just completely overlook, the fact that right outside our windows there may be butterflies, or dancing flowers, cool morning air, or mountains that stretch and thrust and yearn towards an endless, open sky.

I am guilty of forgetting.  I forget all the time about the world beyond my bubble, and this pains me.  Every now and then I'll step outside, and the sun will shine directly into my pupils, an instant, stark reminder that my life is small, the world is big, and if I don't start paying attention, my kids will be grown and all will have changed.  Pretty soon I'll be rocking in a chair and muttering into my oatmeal, hot steam warming my cheeks.

But then, I travel.  I go someplace new.  Last month, it was Sun Valley to see Paulette.  For four days, I cooked, and she photographed, and at night we went out for dinner in town.  But it was the mornings that swept me away.  The mornings, when the sun was dappled, and hazy, when we walked and huddled against the chill, fleeces pulled up, hands in pockets.  I saw the sky last month.

At the market, farmers pressed apples into cider, sold the season's last tomatoes, offered purple plums and longnecked squashes.  The mountains loomed right there, right on top of us practically, as we nestled into their shadows and exchanged dollars for herbs, for potatoes.

It was quiet in Sun Valley.  We didn't watch TV.  We walked, and we cooked.  Took photos, and breathed. 

You should go somewhere.

The world is lovely.

Uncooking

Don't feel like cooking?  No sweat; just cut some stuff up and chuck it towards the table.

I like to cook. I really do.  I'm a big fan of fire, and heat, and sautéing things in olive oil.  I like roasting, love baking, adore composing salads with many layers of vegetable doodads.  I can poach a fish and flip a crepe and scrape the little brown bits off the bottom of a skillet.  But sometimes, I'd rather read a book, or watch TV, or go places.  Sometimes I even like to do nothing, something I do -- can I say this? -- remarkably well.  Basically, sometimes, I like not cooking so much I actually giggle at the joy it brings me.

These not-cooking times vary in frequency and duration, but more often than not they occur on weekends.  Weekend lunches, in particular, are one of my favorite times to practice the art of not cooking.  I've become something of an expert at it. I may even go on tour, just not cooking from city to city, town to town, peddling my skills on street corners and country lanes.  I'll not cook in lots of places.  Under water, on bridges, in museums.

Of course, there is a caveat: my distinct brand of not cooking still involves pretty good food.  I don't want anyone on my watch to starve.  So I cut things up, nicely, and plop them in piles.  I think about color, texture, flavor. I create an artist's palette, so something as seemingly dull as a cucumber actually looks fun, and sassy!, once it's placed next to a scoop of pomegranate seeds, or the sections of an unpithed clementine. 

And then I call the masses.  "Hey, masses!" I trill. "Eat something."

And they do.  They nibble and nabble.  They pick and they dip.  They pair dried apricots with pita triangles and cucumbers with salami and peaches with brie.  And at the end of the meal, or the unmeal, they walk their plates over to the sink.  And I've got no pans to scrub, no splatters to wipe.  I've just got a knife and a cutting board to give a quick wash, and the freedom to return to my day of doing everything or nothing.

Yes, I suppose, you could go to the drive-thru or get a hot dog from 7-Eleven, but without being too dogmatic, don't. Just expand your definition of the meal.  Break free from the shackles of conformity.  Unsandwich the sandwich, de-compose the salad, and unstew the stew.  After you present the platter, if people wonder where their meal is, slap a white hat on their heads and tell them they're in charge.  "Eat it however you like," you'll say.  "You're the chef.  You're the artist."

And then pull back a chair, sit quietly, and watch them paint. 

Before you know it, Monday will come.  You'll pick up your pots, unearth your pans, and embrace the fine art of cooking once again.

Etiquette

My head feels like a tangled necklace, and each time I tease out a little knot, I find another one further down the chain.

I just returned from BlogHer Food, where I met many friendly, kind people, but I'm still trying to figure it all out.  What's real? What's posturing? What's marketing? What's genuine?  The questions fill me up like helium, and soon, I fear, my feet will leave the ground and I'll crack my head on the ceiling. 

It's getting exceedingly difficult for me to figure out where I, and the type of career I'm crafting, fit into this whole swirl of hobnobbing and hoohawing.  I remember back in the day when a writer was someone who enjoyed solitude.  Someone who felt charged by sitting alone at a desk, with nothing more than an idea and a vision, someone who struggled over word choice and sentence formation, rhythm and tempo, syllables and tone.  Someone for whom the process of translating a nugget, or a concept, into a fully realized piece of prose was a genuine form of artistic expression. 

Now, writing is social.  It's a collective.  It's a giant party, with links and shoutouts, with self promotion and promotion of others.  It's about the business and the craft, about advertising and connecting with sponsors, about branding. I struggle with this mightily.  I don't have any answers to this particular angst at the moment.  It's just lingering on my shoulder, and I feel its persistent weight.

And so, since I can't offer you answers, I will instead offer this consolation prize: some wholly unsolicited advice to future conference-goers based on my recent experience. 

A blogger named Brooke Burton (whom I didn't meet, regrettably), wrote up a list of sincere and useful conference-going tips in her aptly-titled post, How to Go to a Food Blogging Conference.  I would like to offer a flip-side companion piece, which I will title:

How *Not* to Go to a Food Blogging Conference, or (subtitle) The 5 Second Rule Guide to Conference Etiquette

1.  When someone sits down next to you at a meal, and you are the only two people at the table, do not keep Tweeting/texting/playing Doodle Jump.  Stop what you're doing, put down your phone, and connect face to face.  You may like her, and she may like you.  One real person in front of you is worth more than 9,000 followers on Twitter. 

2.  Do not introduce yourself with your blog name.  Why?  Because it's incredibly annoying.  Introduce yourself using your real name first, your blog name second.  I can't tell you how weird it is to have someone reach out to shake your hand with the words, "Hi! I'm MelindaCooksBlackBeans!"  Or, "Hi, I'm SexyBakerBunny!" 

3.  Do not hand someone a card before you've exchanged actual, verbal words.  When someone at a conference asks you about your work, or your blog, talk to them using language.  It doesn't even matter what language you use -- Klingon, Swahili, who cares? -- but wait to hand them your card until after you've made an initial connection.  It's more effort, sure, but life's a bitch that way sometimes.

4.  If you see a small group of people chatting quietly with a Very Well Known Writer/ Blogger/ Keynote Speaker, do not physically move your body between the object of your wonderment and the existing group of people talking with her.  Instead, wait politely for a break in the conversation, then do your whole fawny, gushy thing after we've widened the circle.  We will let you in, honest, if you'll just give us the chance.

5.    Do not insult a sponsor.  Mea culpa.  This one was my fault.  One of the sponsors was a yogurt company that had just came out with a new product. I got it in my head that I had a moral imperative to inform them that their divided packaging made me think of baby food trays, and that every time I ate a spoonful of yogurt I felt like I should make airplane noises and feed it to the person next to me.  Brownie points for me?  -25.  Likelihood of my landing a lucrative spokesperson contract? -1,000,000.

So, get out there!  Represent yourself well, meet and greet, and connect with other writers.  And if you've got a safety pin on you, pass it my way.  I've got about 12 remaining kinks in my necklace, and I'm having a hell of a time working them out.

Spade

While waiting for the DVR to queue up some random food program a few days ago, the kids and I watched as Sandra Lee closed out the last two minutes of one of her shows.  Her lemon chiffon dress matched the lemon chiffon set and the lemon chiffon cake.  There were polka dots on the cake and polka dots on the curtains, and I think she even had something in her hair that matched, like, a puppy's leash or the bikini on a goldfish. 

OK, fine, so I'm making up a few scattered details since my memory stinks, but my basic recollection is pretty solid: everything was all matchy match, and if it didn't take 12 stylists and prop gurus and key grips to put this whole scene together, you can call me Harold.  Just before the credits rolled, Lee delivered what I gather to be her routine kicker: "Keep it smart, keep it sweet, keep it simple, and always keep it semi-homemade."

And then we all spontaneously keeled over and cracked up.

We weren't laughing at Sandra Lee, at least not directly.  She's too easy a target, and that's just not who I am.  We were laughing at the complete and utter lie of the word "simple."  Why the pretendiness?  Why the fabrication?  Sure, maybe her food is simple because it relies, in part, on boxed cake mixes, but if I were to choose 6,000 words to describe what I saw on the screen in that last 2 minute shot, I can assure you that "simple" wouldn't make the cut.

So let's just call a spade a spade.

These little dessert thingies above really are pretty simple and straightforward, but this assumes you can make a decent brownie and that the word ganache doesn't close up your throat. Because that's all these are.  They're just brownies, spread with a 2-ingredient ganache.  I even made them a week ahead of time, froze them in a solid sheet (before cutting, and before frosting), and defrosted them overnight the day before the party.  On party day, I just slipped ganache over the top.  Those picks? $2.49 for a 50 pack at Cost Plus.  Those cheapass picks would make anything look fancy, including hairy cubes of moldy liverwurst.  I'm telling you, put a party pick in anything at all, and its fancy-factor multiplies tenfold.

So keep it smart, keep it sweet, keep it simple -- and cut stuff small.  And always, always keep party picks on hand for hairy liverwurst cubes or brownies.

...

Recipe for Party-Ready Mint Brownie Bites, with ganache

I had to make a ton of bite-sized desserts for a big party last weekend, but I knew I would be out of town until just before the event.  So I made these two-bite mint brownies before I left.  Once they'd cooled completely, I wrapped them (uncut) first in plastic wrap and then in a tight layer of aluminum foil.  The day before the party, I let them defrost on the counter overnight, then cut them into 1" squares.

For the ganache:

1/2 cup heavy cream
6 ounces dark or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

In a medium saucepan, bring the heavy cream just to a simmer.  Add the chocolate, remove from the heat, and let sit, covered, for 5 minutes.  Stir with a heatproof spatula, slowly and patiently, until completely smooth.  Let cool slightly, then apply like icing to the top of the brownies.

Skewer the brownies (look for inexpensive picks, and when you find ones you like, buy a ton), and arrange on a decent platter.

Makes 60 to 70 one-inch brownies

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